Sourcing Pandemic News

A Cross-National Computational Analysis of Mainstream Media Coverage of Covid-19 on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Bibliographic Data

ID22010741
AuthorsClaudia Mellado (0000-0001-7894-9468, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, corresponding author), Daniel C Hallin (0000-0002-8531-832X, University of California San Diego), Luis Cárcamo-Ulloa (0000-0003-0633-9606, Austral University of Chile), Rodrigo Alfaro (0000-0002-4136-1713, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso), Daniel Jackson (0000-0002-8833-9476, Bournemouth University), María Luisa Humanes (0000-0002-6860-4463, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos), Mireya Márquez-Ramírez (0000-0001-5890-2363, Ibero American University), Jacques Mick (0000-0001-8456-9488, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina), Cornelia Mothes (0000-0002-7268-1664, Hochschule Macromedia), Christi I-Hsuan Lin (Rikkyo University), Misook Lee (0000-0002-1485-7713, Rikkyo University), Amaranta Alfaro (0000-0001-7159-2486, Alberto Hurtado University), José Isbej (0000-0003-4163-6470, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso), Andrés Ramos (0000-0002-8871-1872, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso), Andrés Ramos Magna (0000-0002-9212-5462, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso)
Year2021
Volume9
Issue9
Pages1261-1285
Publication date2021-10-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDigital Journalism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2167-0811 • E-ISSN: 2167-082X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/21670811.2021.1942114
OpenAlexW3179803318
LanguageEN
Citations received64
References cited57

This article explores the uses of sources in coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in social media posts of mainstream news organizations in Brazil, Chile, Germany, Mexico, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S. Based on computational content analysis, our study analyzes the sources and actors present in more than 940,000 posts on COVID-19 published in the 227 Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts of 78 sampled news outlets between January 1 and December 31 of 2020, comparing their relative importance across countries, across media platforms, and across time as the pandemic evolved in each country. The analysis shows the dominance of political sources across countries and platforms, particularly in Latin America, demonstrating a strong role of the state in constructing pandemic news and suggesting that mainstream news organizations' social media posts maintain a strong elite orientation. Health sources were also prominent — consistent with the defining role of biomedical authority in health coverage—, while significant diversity of sources, including citizen sources, emerged as the pandemic went on. Our results also revealed that the use of specific sources significantly varied over time. These variations tend to go hand in hand with specific global milestones of the pandemic

Advertising · Biology · Business · Elite · Latin Americans · Mainstream · Media studies · News media · Pandemic · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Social media · Sociology · Law · Media Studies and Communication · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Social Media and Politics

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